Hannibal Feels: Roti Recap

I look back on last Sunday’s Game of Thrones when I was so horrified by the Red Wedding and think, “I’m adorable.” Okay, I didn’t really freak out at the Red Wedding. Even when I read it at the time I’d been so sick of Catelyn I was kind of glad she was gone. And the Robb situation was different and… well, read the books. Then you can be the asshole grinning while everyone else is screaming and crying.

This week’s killer of the week was a killer of the week from weeks back. Dr. Gideon has made a break for it after being “psychically driven” to believing himself to be the Chesapeake Ripper (whom we all know to be Hannibal.) We begin with Dr. Chilton having a wonderful sheep South Indian Curry for him. He remarks, “It feels like a last supper.”

Chilton and discuss the best ways to break into a subject’s skull (uh, figuratively. I feel like I should mention figuratively here) and how he managed to drive Dr. Gideon into a wall. Seeing how Chilton had behaves for Dr. Bloom, it’s interesting to see him accept Hannibal as his better. It will be even more interesting to see in the future how that relationship pans out. Will Dr. Chilton have the guts to face Dr. Lecter? (u c wat i did thar?)

It would be cheap to say that we get to experience Will’s wet dream, but, he does dream of a lot of water. It’s frozen water at first and I worried he was going to take the Black at The Wall, but instead it gets all global warming and melts. This is how our polar ice caps are being murdered. But that’s another subject. Anyway. Tsunami engulfs the person totem (which isn’t how he got to Hannibal’s office a couple of episodes ago as far as I know.) He wakes up sweaty at 8:19. Look. I know he’s crazy but what time did he go to bed?

So Dr. Gideon has to go to court over the murder of the nurse. He confronts Chilton and tells him that he’s suing him. It’s maybe kinda lucky for Chilton’s reputation that Gideon never makes it to court and instead murders his guards after giving excellent advice about how it’s easier to murder your spouse rather than divorcing them. They don’t’ seem receptive so they have to die and their organs removed and dangled from tree branches like very gooey ornaments.

Will gets Gideon-brained and reenacts the attacks, though I’m not really sure why since, uh, who did it isn’t really in doubt. Maybe they think Will has GPS. There are footprints, so, I dunno. Anyway, spectacular violence ensues including a novel use for handcuffs.

In the briefing room, Will gets a little horny. Or a lot horny as there are stag horns like, everywhere while Jack goes over Gideon’s actual crimes. Will stands in the corner feeling sweat shamed by a Jack he’s hallucinating. The real Jack just gives him mournful looks.

Naturally, Will has to have a chat with Hannibal about this. In the background… a fire is burning and I’m thinking, “Maybe now’s the time to put the fire out, Hanni?” Because Will flat out says, “I feel crazy.” Feeling crazy isn’t apparently the degree to which Hannibal wants to take this. He’s making mental notes. “Encephalitis + driving him crazy = making crazy.” I’m not a scientist but this doesn’t seem super surprising.

Will feels some kinship with Gideon because he does understand what it feels like to not feel like himself (and the psychic driving.) Apparently Gideon also scrambled the brains of his guards. Not lobotomized, just stirred. It’s foreshadowing. Gideon feels his brains are scrambled so he’s going to go after all psychiatrists who tried to scramble his brains. Will worries for Dr. Bloom but I guess no one much cares for any of the other doctors.

Freddie receives a call from a psychiatrist who studied Gideon who supposedly wants to collaborate on a writing project. This does not trip off her bullshit meter. But really, what she stumbles into is a much better story. It was Gideon on the phone and he has given the psychiatrist (who I don’t think really scrambled his brain, just wrote about him…) a Colombian necktie. This is basically cutting into someone’s throat and pulling their tongue out through that flap. This is to imitating the Chesapeake Ripper’s murder where he pulled out a man’s tongue and used it as a bookmark in his Bible. Still not the same, dear. But look, your own MO! Necktie and he exsanguinated the doctor (which is how he died) and put all of the blood in a cooler with a note to donate to the Red Cross!

Dr. Gideon, btw, was a transplant doctor. So he’s good at harvesting and I guess after the guards he started to see all of this organ removal without new homes a waste. His real crime, killing his wife and everyone at their house, was more of a crime of passion so he’s having to find his murdering voice on the go. I think he’s really starting to find himself.

A link to TattleCrime tells the FBI unit that Gideon has Freddie Lounds. He takes her to the Observatory where Jack Crawford found Miriam Lass’s arm because he hopes that this is where the Chesapeake Ripper will return to. Instead of a note or a text, the Ripper sends a dead-psychiatrist-o-gram that follows Gideon’s new murder style with the added twist of a severed arm as a clue to Jack that Gideon can be rounded up at the Observatory.

It’s a little fuzzy why Hannibal knows he’s there or when this body is found, exactly. And also why and how Gideon managed to nab Chilton (was he such a dick no one wanted to protect him like they do Dr. Bloom?) But while Gideon is waiting for Hannibal to show up, he passes the time by giving Chilton an epidural and playing Operation with his organs as a gift basket for Hannibal. Freddie is left in charge of the ventilator and Chilton survives. But I guess he’ll be less some less necessary organs which will be less tasty for future Hannibal. Sads.

Jack has Will wait outside when he charges in to find Dr. Chilton’s extreme weight loss surgery. Will writes off his fever to a depressed immune system and Jack tells him to walk it off, basically. So Will goes for a walk and winds up in the backseat of Dr. Gideon’s car.

Only, Will thinks it’s Garret Jacob Hobbs and worries that the man driving the car is a dead person, so naturally he has him drive to Hannibal’s place, which is actually where he wants to be, not that he knows that. Hannibal coolly takes in the situation. He doesn’t really know why Will shows up with Gideon. For all he knows, Will is there with faux Chesapeake Ripper to bust the real one. But no. Will is there to ask if Gideon (whom he sees as Hobbs) is real.

This is really, really heartbreaking from a Will perspective because Hannibal tells him no one is there. Will knows there is someone there but he trusts Hannibal, and yet…. He begs Hannibal not to lie to him, but Hannibal does. Will’s brain boils over and he has a seizure which even Gideon is more concerned about than Hannibal. “I said it was a mild seizure.” This, kids, is why psychopaths don’t make great friends.

Will’s seizure. No, wait…

Oh, honey.

Hodor, Hodor! No, not a green dream, this one is a seizure.

Hannibal doesn’t admit to being the Ripper to Gideon, but, I don’t think he does much for the reputation of psychiatrists in Gideon’s mind. Then Hannibal tells Gideon where to find Alana Bloom.

After Gideon leaves, Hannibal assesses the damage that the seizure did to Will. It was not a stroke. Will insists that he saw Garret Jacob Hobbs. Hannibal reminds Will that he killed the man and then gives him a subtle push that he may yet find a way to kill him again. He tells Will to go to a hospital but then feeds him the knowledge that Gideon mutilated Dr. Chilton and that Hannibal is worried about Alana. Will gets up to go with him as Hannibal puts on his coat. In order to sit Will back down, Hannibal sets down his keys on the table, sits Will down, and then leaves the room. And the car keys on the table. Will takes the bait and Hannibal returns to the room for some stone cold chillin’ and waiting for Will to finish his dirty work.

Gideon seems to have harbored a bit of a crush on Alana and in fairness, she never appeared to lie to him. She told him the truth about how Chilton manipulated him in a roundabout way, so he stands outside of her window like he’s not sure if he wants to go there or not. Will joins him, but to Will, Gideon is still Hobbs. Gideon is dealing with maybe the guilt of killing his wife. He’s not sure he’s the relationship type and he assesses that Will maybe isn’t either. Which, in fairness, if Will didn’t have a bloated brain, maybe he would be. Will asks Gideon who he is and Gideon rather philosophically says, “I’m you.” Except Will is in no state for philosophy and apparently figures it’s him, shadow him, maybe the dark side of him that maybe wants to kill Alana rather than love her, and decides to kill. it. ded. all Fight Club style.

It’s worth noting here that Will said that he believed the Chesapeake Ripper would be the one to kill Gideon. This could be something interesting for his brain to swim around in later.

Speaking of brain swimming, hopefully this hospital has the technology to fix the encephalitis, though they can’t seem to identify the source of the infection. They seem to have been able to put Chilton’s guts back in. So, we’ll see.

Hannibal recommends that Jack take away Will’s gun but Jack thinks, “Eh, he’s okay. He shot the right guy.”

In a way, Hannibal did also give Will an opportunity to be Alana’s White Knight. She sits by his bedside. That doesn’t make him any more hinged than before but it’s kinda sweet.

Hannibal sees his psychiatrist to talk about his feels regarding Will. She wonders if he’s not more fascinated by Will’s madness than the man himself, but he disagrees. “I see myself in Will.” I see that too, mostly in fanfics, but… oh, right you meant figuratively.

So basically, Hannibal still sees Will as friend material and DuMaurier tells him to hold back and watch. Obviously she isn’t totally in the loop on the situation and I kind of doubt she’d say, “By all means, keep his diagnosis from him!” but the advice appears to validate what Hannibal wants to hear. And again, psychopaths make bad friends. Probably psychiatrists, too.

27 thoughts on “Hannibal Feels: Roti Recap”

What I find most compelling about Hannibal right now is his patience. His wait-and-see attitude is both believable and incredibly eerie. I can’t help thinking he’s convinced he can handle whatever happens, but I’m less convinced. That dissonance provides a lot of tension. it’s really fascinating right now.

What I’d started to write but kind of rolled back on a little was sort of… Hannipologist about how he dealt with Will. Because really, what choice did he have? Not that Gideon knew that Hannibal was the Ripper, but like…it could’ve got messy if Hannibal wasn’t prepared for an FBI takedown in his apartment. Not to mention that Will was pretty much incapacitated and Gideon was shackled and took down two armed guards. So… I mean… I don’t think Hannibal was ready for Will to show up with Gideon at gunpoint and I think Hannibal *likes* that Will keeps him on his toes.

LOL Yes. There are just a lot of people who seem very mystified by Hannibal’s ambivalence about Will’s seizure. His behavior doesn’t scream “BFF 4 EVAH” to me, but this is why I try to stay on the good side of my psychopath friends.

I was sort of amused by the notion of madness as a response to the ennui of everyday life. But I definitely see him as trying to reprogram Will. And he’ll do it as long as he seems able. If he has to ditch the friend thing to save his ass, it seems pretty obvious which he’ll choose.

She was so awesome. She got herself into the mess, but she wasn’t gonna whine and whimper, she was just gonna do her thing and survive.

Also, I love Alana. Staying by Will’s bed side! Being concerned about Gideon himself, unlike CHILTON. I won’t say Chilton deserved to end up looking like someone had played Operation with him, but he was just as now as he was last time we saw him.

Freddie has a strong survival instinct. And as a tabloid reporter and someone who gets close to her subjects a lot, she probably deals with a lot of twisted situations. My favorite was, “Jack made me write that!” “Oh well in that case you may keep your organs.”

Alana is very level headed, too. Will sort of loses it at Chilton but she doesn’t rise to the bait. She’s more the sort of person you’d want in your head, who would take it seriously. And her flirting with Will (or talking about cuddling up to her dogs anyway) was pretty cute. I mean, not for nothing but Will did kinda save her life. Even if he sort of thought he was killing his crazy impulse to kill her or thought he was shooting a ghost or, you know, whatever….

But honestly I love her most for being like, “okay that boy iz teh krayzee and tho he’s adorbs, I’m going to stand over here.”

I do sort of love the dynamic between her and Gideon. Once he’d got her measure and she his, they were almost sort of amused by each other. A very temporary unholy duo.

Alana is definitely someone I would trust with head troubles. She very rarely gets angry, have you noticed? Only coldly angry with Crawford, and she really blows up at Lecter that one time. But she usually keeps her cool, and she is just so supportive of Will, but i like that she’s not willing to compromise their relationship just because he wants to take it further, because she KNOWS that would be bad for both of them.

You are so, SO right. I raise my metaphorical glass of champagne to Alana Bloom: a woman who knows what is going on, and isn’t going to take any of that shit.

I laughed so much when she said that, I really wasn’t expecting it. It just sounds so weird. I mean, shockingly? I would have gone for ‘Bloody rude!’ but I don’t think Americans say that sort of thing.

I hope we get some backstory on it. I mean, it’s hard to imagine him having an actual affair but not so hard to imagine Alana walking in on something unusual and him playing it off like he was having some sort of affair.

That would be such a good thing! We really don’t know all that much about Lecter, so I hope we get lots of back story in season 2, and David Bowie is his uncle and we learn what he was doing when he was teaching Alana! Let’s have some real back story for the characters!

Yeah, but Fuller says that hopefully they’ll see how successful Hannibal is and be persuaded to sell…and if not, Fuller can surely write a young female agent who is Starling in everything but name, fulfilling her role? 😀